


Sometimes

by RedChucks



Category: Nathan Barley (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 14:22:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15536187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedChucks/pseuds/RedChucks
Summary: Sometimes it’s rough. Sometimes it’s sweet. Sometimes they have to face up to the fact that they mean something to one another. Life’s just like that sometimes.





	Sometimes

Sometimes it’s rough. Some nights Dan ties him down and fucks him until his teeth are buzzing like a live wire loose in an amp, so hard he feels like gravity’s lost its grip on him. Those are the nights when all Jones can do is moan until he runs out of breath and fight to let go of control, and let Dan take it, until he’s boneless against the sheets and free, and able to actually sleep when the orgasms are over. Jones loves those nights, even if they fill him with a unique kind of terror when he thinks about choosing to be so helpless. Sometimes he just needs it and getting it from Dan is far safer than the club loos he used to go for his dirty kicks and hard fucks.

Sometimes it’s rough but in a different way. Times when Dan’s shoulders are bowed to breaking and Jones can feel the shame rippling from him like waves, can taste it on his skin like salt, and his eyes are unfocused and desperate. Then it’s Jones’ job to fuck Dan until he can’t keep his intense, dark, little eyes open, until the shame is sweated out of him and the tide goes out and he can function in the world again. It’s a sacred duty, one of the only responsibilities Jones wants in the world, one of the only things he knows he’s really, genuinely, good at; taking care of Dan when self-loathing and anxiety outweigh the will to live.

Sometimes it’s rough, whoever’s on top, and Jones loves it even if it’s daunting and the thought of it makes his heart race so fast it hurts.

Sometimes it’s just like that.

Sometimes though, it’s gentle and soft and careful, and sweet. Some nights it’s smiles and whispers and sweet kisses and a loving give and take. Sometimes there’s no rush and they take their time, tongues lazy and relaxed and hands skimming over curves and angles. Orgasms are sort of secondary on those nights, it’s more about skin on skin, foreheads pressed together, breathy sighs and laughter and needy declarations they’ll pretend they didn’t say when the morning comes.

Sometimes it’s just like that but when once it was more of a rarity, and then possibly a side effect of having to be careful of casts and post-jump broken bones, over time, without them noticing, it’s grown in to something much more. Something sweet. Something deep.

They’d both been utterly terrified when the realisation hit them, that their sex life had become more about comfortable, evening, blow jobs and lazy, Sunday morning fucks than it was about drug induced gropes in public toilets and aggressive ‘sessions’. They realised that they had a relationship which couldn’t be covered under titles like friends or fuck buddies. They’re living together, sleeping together, waking up together. They’re together, and tracking how they ended up there is like detangling Jones’ cable collection.

Dan doesn’t really do relationships, it’s not his thing. He’s always claimed to despise anything he deems domestic whereas Jones has just never known it - Dan calls him his feral child when he’s in a certain frame of mind - and so coming to terms with the fact that they are in fact in a monogamous, long term, loving relationship, has been... jarring.

Dan railed against it for about a week after the truth hit them both. He’d been even more bitchy and self-loathing than usual and Jones knew he was testing to see how much Jones could take - whether this would be the time Jones gave up on him and packed it in. Dan’s easy to read after so long together, so Jones made a point of shrugging, smiling, hiding his own panic, and waiting it out because Dan’s tantrums only last as long as it takes the shame to kick in that he’s actually having a tantrum, and sure enough, at the end of the week Dan walks in to the House of Jones, somehow managing to stalk angrily and slouch at the same time, and thrusts a bouquet of flowers in Jones’ face.

“Happy anniversary,” he mutters, his frown increasing the longer it takes Jones to wrap his head around what’s happening.

“Anniversary of what, mate?” Jones tries not enjoy the look on Dan’s face but it’s too much and he ducks around his decks to stand toe to toe with the fuming, frustrated, utterly fuckable man before him.

“I dunno,” Dan says eventually, a hint of humour creeping in to his voice, filling Jones with warmth even as it makes him shiver. “But apparently we’re a couple so there must have been an anniversary somewhere along the way. A first date or, or, or... something.”

He shakes his head and makes another face, like he’s bitten in to something off, and Jones knows he’s regretting the flowers already as he leans in, raising up on his toes because Dan’s too tall by half, and kisses him. At first it’s sweet because giving him flowers - pretty, colourful things that Jones doesn’t know the name of but which remind him of pom-poms or clown noses - is properly sweet and romantic, and Jones quite likes the feeling of having a person in his life who actually knows his name and genuinely seems to like him most of the time.

Soon though it turns from something innocent in to something with a little more bite. Jones can feel the discomfort still pushing down on Dan’s shoulders like sleet, crushing and freezing and numbing him, so bites his lip, hard, to break him out of it. Dan lets out a tiny yelp of surprise and pain before his hands delve in to Jones’ hair to grip hard on the multicoloured strands, his tongue forcing its way in to Jones’ mouth as his thick stubble burns Jones’ cheek and chin at the change in angle and tighter press of their bodies. Dan’s awake now, less ashamed and more present, and Jones can feel that wolffish grin against his lips.

“Fuck,” he groans, delighted at the fierceness of it, at how alive Dan feels, at the rustling sound of the flowers being pressed and crushed between their bodies, at the answering rumble from deep in Dan’s throat.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Dan mutters suddenly, gasping between biting Jones’ lip and kissing him so hard he’s stolen Jones’ breath and is dragging giddy gasps if laughter from him instead. “Not just with you. My whole life. I’ve no clue. I’m a walking fucking disaster but...” He thrusts his hips forward, pushing himself against Jones and pushing them both against the corner of Jones’ decks, and Jones can’t stop the loud, needy, moan that slips from his lip. “But I... I think I... I don’t hate you, Jones. I really, really don’t hate you, Jones. God, I... I...”

Jones grins against Dan’s cheek. “I’ll take that.”

His head’s beginning to spin as Dan captures his lips yet again, that jarring feeling at the emotion and affection he’s not used to receiving, like he’s been sucked in to an alternate dimension. The way Dan’s kissing him has changed again and he feels like he’s caught in a rip - unable to keep his head above water, unable to keep up, just dragged on out to the open ocean. Jones can’t swim, literally or emotionally. His only hope is that Dan wouldn’t drag him this far just to let him drown. It should be terrifying, but as Dan’s hand loosens its grip on his hair and slides down to cup his jaw Jones feels the terror evaporate. He’s not good at letting go of control, never has been. He’s had so little control in his life that he clings to what he does have a little too fiercely, but he’s good at Dan, he can read Dan better than any set of written instructions, and leans in to the warm, large, hand with something that feels surprisingly like relief. Sometimes, he knows, he’s the only thing that can calm Dan when the dark water reaches his neck and he starts to drown under the pressure of living, but he’s only just about ready to admit to himself that sometimes Dan does the same for him.

Over the last few years, Jones reflects as Dan rests his forehead against his own and the world goes suddenly still, there’ve been a lot of ‘sometimes’ moments. Sometimes it’s him on top, sometimes it’s Dan. Sometimes it’s rough, sometimes it’s soft, sometimes it’s lazy, sometimes it’s a little bit frantic. But somewhere along the way that ‘not hate’ that they both feel has grown and blossomed like the cheap, minimart flowers he’s still clutching between them, so that no matter what kind of ‘sometime’ it is, that feeling is there all the time. That’s what makes it a proper relationship, Jones supposes as Dan strokes his cheek with his thumb - when sometimes became all the time.

Jones has never been a big fan of permanence, he didn’t have a lot of experience with it growing up and is still deeply suspicious of it as a concept. But he thinks, with time, they could probably both get used to it, especially when it involves kisses like these and (he shudders delightedly as Dan slithers down on to his knees and begins to work on Jones’ jeans with the sort of focus he usually reserves for writing really scathing articles) especially if it includes these sorts of ‘sometimes’.


End file.
